Written and directed by Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe (who also star), GREENER GRASS is a surreal satirical comedy that immerses you almost immediately into its wonderfully bizarre alternate reality. DeBoer and Luebbe come from Upright Citizens Brigade—the improv and sketch comedy brand that continues to produce incredible comic talent, with DeBoer and Luebbe being vivid proof of that. And while GREENER GRASS isn’t a collection of sketches, you can definitely sense that kind of pedigree in the largely self-contained nature of many of the scenes.
I knew when I saw the crazy pastel color palette that this flick was going to be quite an experience. The characters, men and women, have a preference for pink, and everyone, despite having perfectly fine teeth, wears braces. The world that DeBoer and Luebbe have created looks something like what you would see if you dropped acid on Easter Sunday. To say the least, we have some very interesting world building going on here.
As far as the satire – well, it’s nothing that hasn’t been explored before. GREENER GRASS‘ main target is the whole upper-middle class suburban conformity malaise thing that we’re all familiar with. The bourgeois nightmare, that kind of thing. But the directors never let any of that stuff get in the way of the comedy, so even if you feel like the message is kind of worn out, if you at all share the directors’ absurd sensibilities, you’re probably gonna dig this movie.
Jocelyn DeBoer plays Jill, who’s probably the most put upon woman in the world. She’s suffering from a kind of PTSD that comes from bending to the will of the other wives in the neighborhood, ostensibly her girlfriends. The film begins when Jill gives her newborn baby away to her “best friend” Lisa (Luebbe) while they watch their children play soccer. Lisa notices the baby, compliments it and Jill immediately offers the baby to her for keeps. It’s a weird, surreal, and slightly sad scene, and it’s a perfect setup for the movie to come. Buckle up, because it’s going to be a hell of a ride.
There are just so many over-the-top weirdo moments in GREENER GRASS that you really can’t help but be impressed with the creativity. Jill’s husband Nick (played pitch-perfectly by Beck Bennett) is so enamored by his pool’s filtration system that he drinks it and loves the taste so much that he refuses to drink anything else. And there’s the child who becomes a violent sociopath after being exposed to exactly one TV show about kids playing with knives. (I particularly liked this, remembering the paranoia of parents in the ’80s and ’90s who basically thought the same thing about video games and cartoons.)
Jill and Nick’s kid, Julian (played by COLOR OUT OF SPACE‘s Julian Hilliard), is the closest thing to a nonconformist in the film. He’s a child of about nine years old who’s not into sports, to the point where he doesn’t even move during a soccer game or when Nick is trying to get him to play catch. And it’s not just sports that he’s not into, it’s nearly everything his parents force him to participate in. And so, at a piano recital, he forgoes playing any actual music and instead creates his own avant-noise piece that, naturally, horrifies his parents. The cruel universe of GREENER GRASS eventually has its revenge, though, and Julian is forced to conform in a truly bizarre and hilarious way.
There’s not a ton of special features on this new Shout Factory release. There’s a few deleted scenes and some sketches. For me, the most interesting extra was the original GREENER GRASS short film. It’s a neatly condensed version of the film that takes place strictly on the soccer field where Jill and Lisa watch their children play. So much of the humor is in the writing, and you really notice that in this pared-down story.
I think anyone who grew up on movies like AIRPLANE!, NAKED GUN, or (my personal favorite) TOP SECRET, are really going to dig this. GREENER GRASS is completely absurd, over-the-top, and a hell of a lot of fun.
Tags: Absurdist, Beck Bennet, D'Arcy Carden, Dawn Luebbe, IFC Midnight, Jocelyn DeBoer, Julian Hilliard, Neil Casey, satire, shout factory, Suburbia, Upright Citizens Brigade
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